Linda Zagzebski’s stated reasons for seeking a virtue epistemology include not only the impasse between internalist and externalist accounts of epistemic justification, but also neglect of the social dimension of epistemic states and neglect of understanding and wisdom as other ends of the life of the intellect. Lorraine Code's responsibilism remains evident in her recent work on "the power of ignorance" to impact practices that result in domination, exploitation, and oppression. Miranda Fricker's epistemological work focuses on the ways in which social identity and relations of power impinge on participation in epistemic practice. Vrinda Dalmiya borrows from Sosa as well as from both Zagzebski and Code in exploring caring intentions and how they contribute to both our epistemic reliability and responsibility.

What more shall we say of the need for social epistemology today, and of the support that a more unifed virtue responsibilist research program might lend to that task?

I completely agree. My only worry is that when analytic philosophers hear the word 'social', they tend to understand 'social philosophy' instead of 'social science', and when they look for a social science to back there social reflections, they tend to focus on things like sociology, political science, and anthropology. My own suggestion is that a little bit of familiarity with game-theory (which, after all, is the study of 'toy societies') should be the place to begin to think about the social in epistemology. The new journal EPISTEME is doing a nice job in this sense, introducing work more akin to 'economic' concepts, and not only 'sociological' ones.

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